This is a very interesting paper on neutralising antibody treatments, and avoidance of developed resistance to treatment. (I don't know for sure, but guess that it might also argue for a combined vaccine to avoid the development of viral resistance - though of course the immune system will generate a diverse set of antibodies in any event.)
Antibody cocktail to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein prevents rapid mutational escape seen with individual antibodies https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/15/science.abd0831.full Abstract Antibodies targeting the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 present a promising approach to combat the COVID19 pandemic; however, concerns remain that mutations can yield antibody resistance. We investigate the development of resistance against four antibodies to the spike protein that potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2, individually as well as when combined into cocktails. These antibodies remain effective against spike variants that have arisen in the human population. However, novel spike mutants rapidly appeared following in vitro passaging in the presence of individual antibodies, resulting in loss of neutralization; such escape also occurred with combinations of antibodies binding diverse but overlapping regions of the spike protein. Importantly, escape mutants were not generated following treatment with a non-competing antibody cocktail...
...The data described herein strongly support the notion that cocktail therapy may provide a powerful way to minimize mutational escape by SARS-CoV-2; in particular, our studies point to the potential value of antibody cocktails in which two antibodies were chosen so as to bind to distinct and non-overlapping regions of the viral target (in this case, the RBD of the spike protein), and thus require the unlikely occurrence of simultaneous mutations at two distinct genetic sites for viral escape. A clinical candidate selection criterion for broad potency that includes functional assessment against naturally circulating sequence variants, as well as inclusion of multiple antibodies with non-overlapping epitopes, may provide enhanced protection against loss of efficacy. Future in vivo animal and human clinical studies need to pay close attention to possible emergence of escape mutants and potential subsequent loss of drug efficacy.
Today's numbers are beyond microscopic by normal Tuesday standards – usually by far the worst day of the week by reporting day because of weekend lag.
When is the government going to confirm a clear timetable for lockdown release?
Shops are open but the hospitality sector is in dire need of certainty – it's the backbone of Britain and we need to salvage as much as we can from the summer and revive the British tourism sector quick sharp.
My sources tell me that testing is implying between 15% and 20% of people in London have antibodies. This is imo quite a good number. It's not the "iceberg" but it does seem as if there has been plenty of asymptomatic infection. That was a bad thing at the start of the epidemic since it hastened the spread - lots of people not knowing they have the virus and going around shedding it - but at a certain point it becomes a net good thing because of the dampening impact of significant 'community immunity' (what a lovely sounding term!). Perhaps we have passed that tipping point now.
It would seem so. London’s average death rate is now lower than in non-Covid times, at least according to a story I read today. Time for action!
So long as the 'action' is not to kick the horrid thing off again.
Oh dear, their consultancy income must be under threat
In France they are much better at this.
In France, aid budgets are explicitly for the promotion of French interests. Want a power station? Sure, but Alstom and Lafarge are building it.
Im afraid I find this a post imperial hangover, made more ridiculous by the amounts on offer are nothing like what China is pumping in to development projects in the developing world.
As one country said with China they get all the money but without the moralising strings attached.
and 'Steve Analyst' whoever that is. The Union flag is arguably the most popular flag design in the world so I can understand why. Not that I'm fussed either way.
Oh? I can only assume in that case that those PHE numbers, which are the largest contributor, include a LOT of deaths where reporting has been significantly delayed then? Unless the percentage of people dying of this thing at home is rising, which doesn't seem logical.
Deaths at home are a little tricky - the number actually registered there has declined away to low single digits per day now, after being as high as the 60s at peak.
However, breakdowns of all deaths still show ~1000 per week above historical normal. Perhaps these are covid deaths who've never sought a test, or they may be unwell (largely elderly?) who've avoided hospital out of fear - eg ignored chest pains.
I'm no lockdown-phobe, but this might suggest we're reaching the point where fear of the virus is killing more than the virus itself.
and 'Steve Analyst' whoever that is. The Union flag is arguably the most popular flag design in the world so I can understand why. Not that I'm fussed either way.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
Yes, very peculiar. Perhaps there has been an outbreak in Beijing for a while, and it is only now surfacing? Hmm.
I'm treating this tweet by Zeng with major skepticism. Tho, as I say, she was an early whistleblower on Wuhan and was very accurate about the problem there
Abolish all these stupid knighthoods, honours etc. Everyone does a job, some better than others, some have a gift for something, so what, thats life. Cancel the whole damn system, its an anachronism that desereves to be be to bed. Away with it I say. ASre we a forward thinking democracy or just bent on issuing priveleges to the few.
House of Lords = House of Unelected Has-Beens (or Never-Beens in many cases!!)
The last date on which a double digit number was recorded was last Tuesday, June 9th. The population of London exceeds that of Scotland and Wales combined and, needless to say, lives at a vastly higher density, so that can't be anything other than encouraging?
It does look all over bar the shouting here in London. At least for now. Caveat is there is still a lot of distancing atm. If this were to change the virus could get going again but I would foresee a second peak - of about one third the previous one - rather than a second wave. But that is just London. We have a nice bank of antibodies here. There is the rest of the country to think about. The rest of the world too - as much as we would prefer it not to exist, it does.
If there's anything at all to the 20% theory then it could explain most of what's going on. London's there, the Northern conurbations aren't yet so are suffering worse. More rural regions like the South West and East Anglia aren't there either, but the proportion of people who need to have had the disease to confer some degree of the fabled herd immunity might well be lower in very much less densely populated areas.
The news about the first results of the Recovery trial is also very encouraging. If I understand the announcement correctly, they're working with six drugs - one demonstrated useless, one demonstrated really quite useful (meaningful improvements in outcomes for the hospitalised,) and four still to report. Perhaps between the vaccine and treatment trials we'll work out how to significantly ease the pressure on the NHS in time for a second peak in the Autumn, even if such a thing comes along? That would allow a greater return to normality, though FWIW I don't think we're ever going back fully to how things were before this all kicked off. The age of mass commuting is over, which should permanently decrease the effective population density of the country, especially in London.
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Fair analysis, in the main - but I thought Israel's lockdown and quaranting and general pandemic-response was considered exemplary?
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
Presumably the rate of growth is such that in two weeks time, when current cases become clear, it will be too large to ignore.
It's the New Zealand approach, go quick, go strong. It works but it does need a brave government that is prepared to action before it looks necessary.
It would be interesting to get some kind of breakdown on the 233 new reported deaths. Are the majority now in care homes?
The ONS has figures on location of covid deaths: care homes increased steadily to a peak of ~45%ish a month ago, then declined to around a third now. This is actual date of death so a more accurate picture than the daily numbers, but only until Jun5th.
The guy below posts breakdowns of the daily figures:
Oh? I can only assume in that case that those PHE numbers, which are the largest contributor, include a LOT of deaths where reporting has been significantly delayed then? Unless the percentage of people dying of this thing at home is rising, which doesn't seem logical.
Hopefully once the backlog of delayed reporting has been cleared the daily totals will fall off a cliff.
Today's numbers are beyond microscopic by normal Tuesday standards – usually by far the worst day of the week by reporting day because of weekend lag.
When is the government going to confirm a clear timetable for lockdown release?
Shops are open but the hospitality sector is in dire need of certainty – it's the backbone of Britain and we need to salvage as much as we can from the summer and revive the British tourism sector quick sharp.
My sources tell me that testing is implying between 15% and 20% of people in London have antibodies. This is imo quite a good number. It's not the "iceberg" but it does seem as if there has been plenty of asymptomatic infection. That was a bad thing at the start of the epidemic since it hastened the spread - lots of people not knowing they have the virus and going around shedding it - but at a certain point it becomes a net good thing because of the dampening impact of significant 'community immunity' (what a lovely sounding term!). Perhaps we have passed that tipping point now.
Daily Covid hospital deaths for the London region, June 1st onwards:
The last date on which a double digit number was recorded was last Tuesday, June 9th. The population of London exceeds that of Scotland and Wales combined and, needless to say, lives at a vastly higher density, so that can't be anything other than encouraging?
It’s extremely encouraging - be good to see some serious analysis on the London phenomenon. Especially since this was the pariah city on PB...
‘Dickheads in London’ would cause a second spike thanks to their canoodling and frolicking in the April warm spells, or so we were assured on PB.
But those dogs never barked.
Why not?
I wasn't someone predicting a spike, but some thoughts: - Dickheads can be as dickheady as they like if neither they nor the other dickheads are infected. - Dickheads being dickheads out in the open air is probably fairly safe unless they're really getting intimate (which probably happened in some cases, but maybe not with multiple dickheads unless they were also quite promiscuous). - Being a dickhead with the same people for a day or two and not then mixing with other non-dickheads (so going to the park and hanging out, but not subsequently going back to shops, to work etc) would limit onward transmission mostly to dickheads. - If the number of dickheads are sufficiently low or actions of dickheads not sufficiently dangerous then R stays below 1 and there's no second spike.
It may well turn out that fairly minimal precautions are sufficient to keep R below 1, we'll see...
The last date on which a double digit number was recorded was last Tuesday, June 9th. The population of London exceeds that of Scotland and Wales combined and, needless to say, lives at a vastly higher density, so that can't be anything other than encouraging?
It does look all over bar the shouting here in London. At least for now. Caveat is there is still a lot of distancing atm. If this were to change the virus could get going again but I would foresee a second peak - of about one third the previous one - rather than a second wave. But that is just London. We have a nice bank of antibodies here. There is the rest of the country to think about. The rest of the world too - as much as we would prefer it not to exist, it does.
If there's anything at all to the 20% theory then it could explain most of what's going on. London's there, the Northern conurbations aren't yet so are suffering worse. More rural regions like the South West and East Anglia aren't there either, but the proportion of people who need to have had the disease to confer some degree of the fabled herd immunity might well be lower in very much less densely populated areas.
The news about the first results of the Recovery trial is also very encouraging. If I understand the announcement correctly, they're working with six drugs - one demonstrated useless, one demonstrated really quite useful (meaningful improvements in outcomes for the hospitalised,) and four still to report. Perhaps between the vaccine and treatment trials we'll work out how to significantly ease the pressure on the NHS in time for a second peak in the Autumn, even if such a thing comes along? That would allow a greater return to normality, though FWIW I don't think we're ever going back fully to how things were before this all kicked off. The age of mass commuting is over, which should permanently decrease the effective population density of the country, especially in London.
I'm getting the info on the (15 to 20) London antibody % from my brother who is quite senior in the NHS and gets to see various interesting things in the data pipeline - sometimes even before Twitter.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
The economy will self-destruct
Another keeper.
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
Oh dear, their consultancy income must be under threat
In France they are much better at this.
In France, aid budgets are explicitly for the promotion of French interests. Want a power station? Sure, but Alstom and Lafarge are building it.
Im afraid I find this a post imperial hangover, made more ridiculous by the amounts on offer are nothing like what China is pumping in to development projects in the developing world.
As one country said with China they get all the money but without the moralising strings attached.
Chinese aid has plenty of strings attached, as it's often on the form of eventually expensive loans.
Oh dear, their consultancy income must be under threat
In France they are much better at this.
In France, aid budgets are explicitly for the promotion of French interests. Want a power station? Sure, but Alstom and Lafarge are building it.
Im afraid I find this a post imperial hangover, made more ridiculous by the amounts on offer are nothing like what China is pumping in to development projects in the developing world.
As one country said with China they get all the money but without the moralising strings attached.
Chinese aid has plenty of strings attached, as it's often on the form of eventually expensive loans.
There was one project where JCB pointed out that there was a one-to-one match with equipment orders being cancelled by the government in question and the purchase of non-UK sourced equipment. With money from DfID.
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
Presumably the rate of growth is such that in two weeks time, when current cases become clear, it will be too large to ignore.
It's the New Zealand approach, go quick, go strong. It works but it does need a brave government that is prepared to action before it looks necessary.
Yes maybe. The alternative explanation being punted about by Xi-haters is that Beijing has had a covid problem for some time, they tried to keep it quiet, but now the ambulances on the street are too obvious to conceal
Given that this is exactly what happened in Wuhan, I would not rule it out.
The deeper conspiracy theorists are saying the Beijing outbreak started at the National People's Congress in late May, which would be doubly embarrassing for the party, hence their desire to hush it up
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
Any interpretation is possible. They really don't want a large scale outbreak in Beijing, so the reported scale, and the reaction to it could be entirely true. A much bigger outbreak is also possible, of course.
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Fair analysis, in the main - but I thought Israel's lockdown and quaranting and general pandemic-response was considered exemplary?
Schools have been the main source of growth in infection. From what I read a number of students were ignoring distancing measures and so probably took it home and now they've got a resurgence in various settings.
Why Israel, though? Why not some other countries? There must be some reason for the randomness of this but what? One thought I had is that, somehow, it needs a threshold of superspreading events for it to take off. If you don't have them, then you are okay but, if they kick it off, then it's too late. Who knows?
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
The economy will self-destruct
Another keeper.
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
Perhaps it escaped your attention that the economy shrank by 20% in April?
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
The economy will self-destruct
Another keeper.
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Fair analysis, in the main - but I thought Israel's lockdown and quaranting and general pandemic-response was considered exemplary?
Schools have been the main source of growth in infection. From what I read a number of students were ignoring distancing measures and so probably took it home and now they've got a resurgence in various settings.
Why Israel, though? Why not some other countries? There must be some reason for the randomness of this but what? One thought I had is that, somehow, it needs a threshold of superspreading events for it to take off. If you don't have them, then you are okay but, if they kick it off, then it's too late. Who knows?
Religion has been a major driver of covid-19 - that church in Korea, that shrine in Iran.
The last date on which a double digit number was recorded was last Tuesday, June 9th. The population of London exceeds that of Scotland and Wales combined and, needless to say, lives at a vastly higher density, so that can't be anything other than encouraging?
It does look all over bar the shouting here in London. At least for now. Caveat is there is still a lot of distancing atm. If this were to change the virus could get going again but I would foresee a second peak - of about one third the previous one - rather than a second wave. But that is just London. We have a nice bank of antibodies here. There is the rest of the country to think about. The rest of the world too - as much as we would prefer it not to exist, it does.
If there's anything at all to the 20% theory then it could explain most of what's going on. London's there, the Northern conurbations aren't yet so are suffering worse. More rural regions like the South West and East Anglia aren't there either, but the proportion of people who need to have had the disease to confer some degree of the fabled herd immunity might well be lower in very much less densely populated areas.
The news about the first results of the Recovery trial is also very encouraging. If I understand the announcement correctly, they're working with six drugs - one demonstrated useless, one demonstrated really quite useful (meaningful improvements in outcomes for the hospitalised,) and four still to report. Perhaps between the vaccine and treatment trials we'll work out how to significantly ease the pressure on the NHS in time for a second peak in the Autumn, even if such a thing comes along? That would allow a greater return to normality, though FWIW I don't think we're ever going back fully to how things were before this all kicked off. The age of mass commuting is over, which should permanently decrease the effective population density of the country, especially in London.
I'm getting the info on the (15 to 20) London antibody % from my brother who is quite senior in the NHS and gets to see various interesting things in the data pipeline - sometimes even before Twitter.
But what is the sampled population behind those figures? If the population is made up of people who work in or stayed in hospital or if the poplation is people who have a friend who had it, or are people who think they might have had it, then you would expect the proportrion of positives found to be higher than in the world at large.
To get an accurate measure of the overall population then the study has to try hard to reach a representative sample.
Single parent, two children, working part-time earning £7,500 per year gets:
Child tax credits £477.87 every 4 weeks (ie £119 per week) Working tax credits of £360.80 every 4 weeks (ie £90 per week)
They will also get child benefit of £35 per week (£21.05 1st child, £13.95 2nd child)
Can anyone explain what the child tax credits and child benefit (total £154 per week) is for if it isn't to feed your children?
In total such a person is getting per year £12,688 benefits + £7,500 earnings (zero tax/NI) to give total of £20,188 cash in their pocket.
And they can't buy their children lunch?
Housing costs.
Housing benefit.
Benefit Cap is £20,000 a year outside London
Lots of people knock their pan in every week and lucky to get near to £20K. It should be impossible to get more than minimum wage on benefits.
Malcolmg - now also known as Aveit Scotland - is right once again.
Personally I would reduce these benefits further. It's just immoral for this welfare to be paid - don't have children if you can't afford to bring them up!
Single parent, two children, working part-time earning £7,500 per year gets:
Child tax credits £477.87 every 4 weeks (ie £119 per week) Working tax credits of £360.80 every 4 weeks (ie £90 per week)
They will also get child benefit of £35 per week (£21.05 1st child, £13.95 2nd child)
Can anyone explain what the child tax credits and child benefit (total £154 per week) is for if it isn't to feed your children?
In total such a person is getting per year £12,688 benefits + £7,500 earnings (zero tax/NI) to give total of £20,188 cash in their pocket.
And they can't buy their children lunch?
Housing costs.
Housing benefit.
Benefit Cap is £20,000 a year outside London
Lots of people knock their pan in every week and lucky to get near to £20K. It should be impossible to get more than minimum wage on benefits.
Malcolmg - now also known as Aveit Scotland - is right once again.
Personally I would reduce these benefits further. It's just immoral for this welfare to be paid - don't have children if you can't afford to bring them up!
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Fair analysis, in the main - but I thought Israel's lockdown and quaranting and general pandemic-response was considered exemplary?
Schools have been the main source of growth in infection. From what I read a number of students were ignoring distancing measures and so probably took it home and now they've got a resurgence in various settings.
Why Israel, though? Why not some other countries? There must be some reason for the randomness of this but what? One thought I had is that, somehow, it needs a threshold of superspreading events for it to take off. If you don't have them, then you are okay but, if they kick it off, then it's too late. Who knows?
Wait a minute!!! Lots of highly informed contributers here have been confidently telling us that we can ignore the negligible risk of school age kids spreading the lurgie.
I'm trying to think of a word for deriding as "stupid" a word which describes concisely and precisely something that is prevalent and previously lacked a name.
Marcus Rashford has done more for child poverty than all the opposition mps put together or that grossly overpaid Gary Lineker
Marcus a top class striker, in more ways than one
Actually Gary Lineker has done a lot for childhood leukaemia but he's not chosen to publicise that.
You can be very ungallant at times.
I accept that Lineker has helped childhood leukaemia but he has not achieved such a spectacular success as Marcus who has remained apolitical throughout.
Marcus deserves all the praise he gets, especially for one so young
I guess Miss Cyclefree had lots of pepper in her porridge this morning.
It deserves more on topic comment, but other than agreement, there's little I can add.
Yeah, it's a very good header. Leadership is difficult, and modern organisations are complex with many opportunities for screwing up, but nevertheless we do seem to be lumbered with a lot of mediocre leadership right now. I guess everyone projects their own pet hates onto the problem, so for me a big part of the problem is a hierarchical, class-ridden society that favours well spoken mediocrities polished by the public school-Oxbridge complex over real talent or expertise (and its associated problems, the cults of the amateur and the generalist). But I imagine that's not the only reason. Perhaps we are too nice? Germans and Americans tend to be much more abrasive in professional life, and seem to run things better.
Far from it, the discovery Dexamethasone cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and for those on oxygen cut deaths by a fifth is excellent news.
The fact China has ended lockdown and declared it has solved the problem without introducing proper social distancing is another example of China not acting effectively on this
Far from it, the discovery Dexamethasone cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and for those on oxygen cut deaths by a fifth is excellent news.
The fact China has ended lockdown and declared it has solved the problem without introducing proper social distancing is another example of China not acting effectively on this
It cuts death rates but does not stop people acquiring covid and dying from it
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
The economy will self-destruct
Another keeper.
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
So, you're all right, Jack?
Stupid post.
All I am saying is that every PB assurance of a new spike so far has proved wrong.
The last date on which a double digit number was recorded was last Tuesday, June 9th. The population of London exceeds that of Scotland and Wales combined and, needless to say, lives at a vastly higher density, so that can't be anything other than encouraging?
It does look all over bar the shouting here in London. At least for now. Caveat is there is still a lot of distancing atm. If this were to change the virus could get going again but I would foresee a second peak - of about one third the previous one - rather than a second wave. But that is just London. We have a nice bank of antibodies here. There is the rest of the country to think about. The rest of the world too - as much as we would prefer it not to exist, it does.
If there's anything at all to the 20% theory then it could explain most of what's going on. London's there, the Northern conurbations aren't yet so are suffering worse. More rural regions like the South West and East Anglia aren't there either, but the proportion of people who need to have had the disease to confer some degree of the fabled herd immunity might well be lower in very much less densely populated areas.
The news about the first results of the Recovery trial is also very encouraging. If I understand the announcement correctly, they're working with six drugs - one demonstrated useless, one demonstrated really quite useful (meaningful improvements in outcomes for the hospitalised,) and four still to report. Perhaps between the vaccine and treatment trials we'll work out how to significantly ease the pressure on the NHS in time for a second peak in the Autumn, even if such a thing comes along? That would allow a greater return to normality, though FWIW I don't think we're ever going back fully to how things were before this all kicked off. The age of mass commuting is over, which should permanently decrease the effective population density of the country, especially in London.
I'm getting the info on the (15 to 20) London antibody % from my brother who is quite senior in the NHS and gets to see various interesting things in the data pipeline - sometimes even before Twitter.
But what is the sampled population behind those figures? If the population is made up of people who work in or stayed in hospital or if the poplation is people who have a friend who had it, or are people who think they might have had it, then you would expect the proportrion of positives found to be higher than in the world at large.
To get an accurate measure of the overall population then the study has to try hard to reach a representative sample.
I think - but cannot swear to it - that it's a decent sized sample of the general population.
The % of London hospital workers showing antibodies is much higher - around 38%.
I guess Miss Cyclefree had lots of pepper in her porridge this morning.
It deserves more on topic comment, but other than agreement, there's little I can add.
Yeah, it's a very good header. Leadership is difficult, and modern organisations are complex with many opportunities for screwing up, but nevertheless we do seem to be lumbered with a lot of mediocre leadership right now. I guess everyone projects their own pet hates onto the problem, so for me a big part of the problem is a hierarchical, class-ridden society that favours well spoken mediocrities polished by the public school-Oxbridge complex over real talent or expertise (and its associated problems, the cults of the amateur and the generalist). But I imagine that's not the only reason. Perhaps we are too nice? Germans and Americans tend to be much more abrasive in professional life, and seem to run things better.
Germans accept academic selection in education with no qualms, interestingly - partly because they have many very good technical colleges too, which in some cases have offered a better start for those going into ultimately prominent intellectually-led jobs than other schools. Here it seems to have got tied up with questions of social caste.
We Can Protect the Economy From Pandemics. Why Didn't We? https://www.wired.com/story/nathan-wolfe-global-economic-fallout-pandemic-insurance/ ...In 2015, Metabiota had partnered with German reinsurance giant Munich Re and American insurance brokerage Marsh to develop and sell a policy specifically to guard large businesses against pandemics—to stanch the financial losses and keep them afloat. They'd launched it in mid-2018, a year and a half before the first Covid-19 cases appeared in China.
My sense of tedium evaporated. As Wolfe and I were talking, a total economic lockdown was in place, with millions of jobs disappearing by the week and lines at food pantries stretching by the hour. And here he was saying that they had come up with a kind of financial vaccine for exactly this scenario, released not long before the worst pandemic in a century. It wouldn't stop the virus, of course, but it could help alleviate some of the misery that flowed from it.
How must those CEOs feel, I wondered aloud, who had the foresight to buy the world's first pandemic business insurance? What a story they would have to tell.
There was just one problem. “By and large we failed,” Wolfe said. “Not because we didn't do the models well. We enabled the first business-disruption insurance for pandemics. But nobody bought it.”...
Why Bejing taking off, and not London after all this has gone on in last couple of weeks?
There is something not quite right here.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
They know the way is to stamp on it hard, let it get out of control and there is much more to do.
Perhaps. It is a rather depressing prospect for the rest of us, if this is going to be life for the next year or two. Successive intense lockdowns.
The economy will self-destruct
Another keeper.
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
Perhaps it escaped your attention that the economy shrank by 20% in April?
I'm going with this as a rebound rather than a second wave. To me, a second wave happens because of the properties of the virus (dormancy, it needs certain environmental factors etc,) whereas what we are seeing in places like Iran, Israel and Florida is down to human stupidity. Allowing reopening when the virus was still at a high enough level, rapidly forgetting behaviours needed to stop transmission etc. is because of the people not the virus.
Fair analysis, in the main - but I thought Israel's lockdown and quaranting and general pandemic-response was considered exemplary?
Schools have been the main source of growth in infection. From what I read a number of students were ignoring distancing measures and so probably took it home and now they've got a resurgence in various settings.
Why Israel, though? Why not some other countries? There must be some reason for the randomness of this but what? One thought I had is that, somehow, it needs a threshold of superspreading events for it to take off. If you don't have them, then you are okay but, if they kick it off, then it's too late. Who knows?
Wait a minute!!! Lots of highly informed contributers here have been confidently telling us that we can ignore the negligible risk of school age kids spreading the lurgie.
Studies are pretty clear that children don't get it severely, not that they don't get it or spread it. How much they spread it is unclear but it's pretty obvious that a lot of children together are going to spread it more than if they are not together.
Far from it, the discovery Dexamethasone cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and for those on oxygen cut deaths by a fifth is excellent news.
The fact China has ended lockdown and declared it has solved the problem without introducing proper social distancing is another example of China not acting effectively on this
It cuts death rates but does not stop people acquiring covid and dying from it
Also it doesn't help people not on ventilators or oxygen, and, as we are discovering, they are the hidden terror of covid-19: people with long term chronic problems, sometimes life-changingly bad.
The new drug is good news, but there's a long way to go
Marcus Rashford has done more for child poverty than all the opposition mps put together or that grossly overpaid Gary Lineker
Marcus a top class striker, in more ways than one
As ever they were talking about England, of course in Scotland the government had never had any intention of stopping the support and it was business as usual.
"By the time eight-year-old Lee Ji-ho is bundled out the door for his one day a week of in-class schooling, his mother has already completed an online form detailing his temperature, any signs of a cough or other respiratory complaints, and whether any family members have recently arrived home from overseas or are in quarantine.
"Once at school in Seoul’s Seocho district, he sits metres apart from classmates and is instructed not to talk to friends — not even during lunch, where instead he eats in solitude, separated from the other children by a plastic divider."
It may be that a lot of these so-called second waves are in fact the first wave in places where they tried to cover it up to begin with.
Marcus Rashford has done more for child poverty than all the opposition mps put together or that grossly overpaid Gary Lineker
Marcus a top class striker, in more ways than one
As ever they were talking about England, of course in Scotland the government had never had any intention of stopping the support and it was business as usual.
Malcolmg returns to 'little Scotlander' and is no longer classified as 'Aveit Scotland' 😊
Comments
(I don't know for sure, but guess that it might also argue for a combined vaccine to avoid the development of viral resistance - though of course the immune system will generate a diverse set of antibodies in any event.)
Antibody cocktail to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein prevents rapid mutational escape seen with individual antibodies
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/15/science.abd0831.full
Abstract
Antibodies targeting the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 present a promising approach to combat the COVID19 pandemic; however, concerns remain that mutations can yield antibody resistance. We investigate the development of resistance against four antibodies to the spike protein that potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2, individually as well as when combined into cocktails. These antibodies remain effective against spike variants that have arisen in the human population. However, novel spike mutants rapidly appeared following in vitro passaging in the presence of individual antibodies, resulting in loss of neutralization; such escape also occurred with combinations of antibodies binding diverse but overlapping regions of the spike protein. Importantly, escape mutants were not generated following treatment with a non-competing antibody cocktail...
...The data described herein strongly support the notion that cocktail therapy may provide a powerful way to minimize mutational escape by SARS-CoV-2; in particular, our studies point to the potential value of antibody cocktails in which two antibodies were chosen so as to bind to distinct and non-overlapping regions of the viral target (in this case, the RBD of the spike protein), and thus require the unlikely occurrence of simultaneous mutations at two distinct genetic sites for viral escape. A clinical candidate selection criterion for broad potency that includes functional assessment against naturally circulating sequence variants, as well as inclusion of multiple antibodies with non-overlapping epitopes, may provide enhanced protection against loss of efficacy. Future in vivo animal and human clinical studies need to pay close attention to possible emergence of escape mutants and potential subsequent loss of drug efficacy.
As one country said with China they get all the money but without the moralising strings attached.
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1272848701040537601?s=20
However, breakdowns of all deaths still show ~1000 per week above historical normal. Perhaps these are covid deaths who've never sought a test, or they may be unwell (largely elderly?) who've avoided hospital out of fear - eg ignored chest pains.
I'm no lockdown-phobe, but this might suggest we're reaching the point where fear of the virus is killing more than the virus itself.
His Government spent all morning saying he was wrong.
It's a stupid term anyway, but makes no sense at all given Rashford is also a man...
I'm treating this tweet by Zeng with major skepticism. Tho, as I say, she was an early whistleblower on Wuhan and was very accurate about the problem there
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1272923915581632514
The Pentagon revealed the new paint scheme for Air Force One, and people say it looks like Trump's private jet
https://www.businessinsider.com/paint-job-plans-new-air-force-one-trumps-private-jet-2020-2
The news about the first results of the Recovery trial is also very encouraging. If I understand the announcement correctly, they're working with six drugs - one demonstrated useless, one demonstrated really quite useful (meaningful improvements in outcomes for the hospitalised,) and four still to report. Perhaps between the vaccine and treatment trials we'll work out how to significantly ease the pressure on the NHS in time for a second peak in the Autumn, even if such a thing comes along? That would allow a greater return to normality, though FWIW I don't think we're ever going back fully to how things were before this all kicked off. The age of mass commuting is over, which should permanently decrease the effective population density of the country, especially in London.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/892354/Medicines_that_cannot_be_parallel_exported_from_the_UK_15_June_2020.csv/preview
Tablets from April, solution for injection from today.
When asked, Johnson blustered that he was sure it wasn't, but would get back to the questioner.
Beijing is a city of 21m people. More than twice as big as London. Enormous. It is reporting 106 covid19 cases in a week (and no deaths?)
Yet the local officials are calling this a "very severe situation" and a "war-like emergency". They have put parts of the city in quarantine, they are telling people to work from home, they are banning internal travel to Beijing and now they have closed all the schools.
For 106 cases?
Remember I am a critic of Boris
The economy will self-destruct
Is this condition threatening you, Boris, the partner or the telly?
I guess Miss Cyclefree had lots of pepper in her porridge this morning.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1272931066106560512?s=20
It's the New Zealand approach, go quick, go strong. It works but it does need a brave government that is prepared to action before it looks necessary.
- Dickheads can be as dickheady as they like if neither they nor the other dickheads are infected.
- Dickheads being dickheads out in the open air is probably fairly safe unless they're really getting intimate (which probably happened in some cases, but maybe not with multiple dickheads unless they were also quite promiscuous).
- Being a dickhead with the same people for a day or two and not then mixing with other non-dickheads (so going to the park and hanging out, but not subsequently going back to shops, to work etc) would limit onward transmission mostly to dickheads.
- If the number of dickheads are sufficiently low or actions of dickheads not sufficiently dangerous then R stays below 1 and there's no second spike.
It may well turn out that fairly minimal precautions are sufficient to keep R below 1, we'll see...
As opposed to Blair Force One - remember that proposal?
https://newsbook.com.mt/en/bob-the-streetcat-dies/
So far none of these hyperbolic PB dogs have barked. And the hound-handlers end up looking hysterical.
Marcus a top class striker, in more ways than one
No, I am SeanT....
https://twitter.com/Michael90656953/status/1272536109730291714?s=20
Given that this is exactly what happened in Wuhan, I would not rule it out.
The deeper conspiracy theorists are saying the Beijing outbreak started at the National People's Congress in late May, which would be doubly embarrassing for the party, hence their desire to hush it up
They really don't want a large scale outbreak in Beijing, so the reported scale, and the reaction to it could be entirely true. A much bigger outbreak is also possible, of course.
How long will the nation be happy to be chuntered at?
This, for me, is the million dollar question.
SeanT
Why Israel, though? Why not some other countries? There must be some reason for the randomness of this but what? One thought I had is that, somehow, it needs a threshold of superspreading events for it to take off. If you don't have them, then you are okay but, if they kick it off, then it's too late. Who knows?
https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/uk-gdp-falls-20-in-one-month
Meanwhile, in the most religious parts of Israel:
https://twitter.com/religion_state/status/1270627423609131011?s=20
To get an accurate measure of the overall population then the study has to try hard to reach a representative sample.
You can be very ungallant at times.
Personally I would reduce these benefits further. It's just immoral for this welfare to be paid - don't have children if you can't afford to bring them up!
😠
Are we a kind of pandemic?
Do we need to drastically change our life style and economy?
Help me out?
Marcus deserves all the praise he gets, especially for one so young
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281
The fact China has ended lockdown and declared it has solved the problem without introducing proper social distancing is another example of China not acting effectively on this
All I am saying is that every PB assurance of a new spike so far has proved wrong.
The % of London hospital workers showing antibodies is much higher - around 38%.
https://www.wired.com/story/nathan-wolfe-global-economic-fallout-pandemic-insurance/
...In 2015, Metabiota had partnered with German reinsurance giant Munich Re and American insurance brokerage Marsh to develop and sell a policy specifically to guard large businesses against pandemics—to stanch the financial losses and keep them afloat. They'd launched it in mid-2018, a year and a half before the first Covid-19 cases appeared in China.
My sense of tedium evaporated. As Wolfe and I were talking, a total economic lockdown was in place, with millions of jobs disappearing by the week and lines at food pantries stretching by the hour. And here he was saying that they had come up with a kind of financial vaccine for exactly this scenario, released not long before the worst pandemic in a century. It wouldn't stop the virus, of course, but it could help alleviate some of the misery that flowed from it.
How must those CEOs feel, I wondered aloud, who had the foresight to buy the world's first pandemic business insurance? What a story they would have to tell.
There was just one problem. “By and large we failed,” Wolfe said. “Not because we didn't do the models well. We enabled the first business-disruption insurance for pandemics. But nobody bought it.”...
Yet every infection spike predicted with absolute certainty on here has failed to materialise.
Why?
The new drug is good news, but there's a long way to go